Floods' Pain Still Felt 1 Year Later In Rural South Carolina

A Christian group of about 1,500 carpenters, plumbers, electricians and other volunteers that formed in response to Hurricane Katrina is on its way to Williamsburg County, where flooding damaged 28 percent of the homes badly enough to qualify for federal aid. The nearly two feet of rain that swamped the state last October caused the slow-flowing, tea-colored Black River to rise 18 feet in five days, cresting at double its flood stage, three feet above what anyone alive had ever seen. The rain damaged her roof, there's mold in her walls, and the moisture created two holes in her floor that she covers with rugs and bottles of water. Federal disaster money paid for replacement flooring and a new front door, but they remain in boxes, unopened. County officials say many hundreds of the 3,349 homes that received Federal Emergency Management Agency money still aren't fixed. [...] homes that weren't damaged beyond repair remain inhabited, even though they could be full of dangerous mold or safety hazards after water settled into drywall, roofs and foundations. The charity's volunteers began arriving in Williamsburg and neighboring Georgetown County two weeks early, scoping out which houses needed help, and what supplies and workers were needed for $425,000 in repairs, all paid for through donations of money, labor and materials. The TV in the Williamsburg Emergency Management Office is almost always on The Weather Channel or the news, so when Singleton saw that Louisiana floodwaters had swamped all but the roofs of homes in August, he flashed back to those terrible days at home a year ago.

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